A Study of Negative Conditionals in Korean:-takanun and -esstakanun

Abstract

This paper aims to characterize the semantic world of two negative conditional markers in Korean: -takanun and -esstakanun. I argue that -takanun is constrained to conditionalize a 'progressive' situation over a probable domain, whereas -esstaknun can be used to express a variety of conditional speaker attitudes such as GENERIC STANCE and UNCERTAINTY as well as COUNTERFACTUAL in the hypothetical domain. I also argue that -ess in the -esstakanun form should be viewed as the perfect aspect marker and it does a grammatical role of back-shifting, creating such a conditional reading as If it ever happens that ... .